» City robins have to diet to prevent themselves getting fat in late night binges

City robins have to diet to prevent themselves getting fat in late night binges

Published: Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 19:10 [IST]

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London, December 22 (ANI): In a new research, scientists have discovered that robins living in cities have to diet to prevent themselves getting fat in late night binges.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the research, by scientists at the Cardiff University, UK, determined that robins are able to feed for longer because of artificial lights such as street lamps, so they have to regulate their food intake.

The research examined how artificial light affects the amount of food consumed by European robins, and was compared with the amount of food consumed by birds in natural light.t showed that artificially lit birds have different activity schedules to those in natural conditions and have the ability to regulate their body masses differently.

"'We have found that robins under artificial lighting conditions begin their daily activity far earlier than when under natural unlit conditions," said Alexandra Pollard, a researcher from the Cardiff School of Biosciences, who undertook the research.

"However, even though they are active for longer and have food available overnight, they lose a similar amount of body mass to unlit robins - something we did not expect to find," she added.

"We thought that if food was freely available the robins would consume as much as possible, to maximize their energy reserves, but they gradually consumed their freely available food over their longer activity period than those under natural conditions," she further added.

She added that while the research suggested that street lights do not have an adverse impact on the ability to regulate body weight, artificial lights still affect other aspects of bird behaviour, including breeding. (ANI)